Page 142 of Saved By My Buyers

“I hope you won’t need his voice tomorrow,” she murmurs under her breath to me.

“Nope, I hope he can’t talk at all over the weekend. Fuck, you should get such a big raise,” I sigh dreamily.

Ciara huffs out a laugh, and we get the attention of the guard at the front of the building, as Ivan drops to his knees, continuing to hack and cough. The stupid fucker is going to have a hard time getting enough air.

When you fuck around with someone who has an ex-military body guard protecting her, you’re going to find out. It’s really that simple.

“It appears that Ivan fell into my bodyguard’s fist,” I say to the guard. “Can you make sure he recovers before he’s escorted from the school, please? I’m leaving for the night. Sullivan is still here though.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says with a nod, appearing amused.

“Thanks so much,” I say, and Ciara and I leave. It isn’t lost to me that Ciara is very careful to have our backs to Ivan. Would he shoot us in the back? Is he capable of that?

Maybe…

All I want is to have a nice, boring day, for fuck’s sake. Thankfully, the drive home is just that, and Jack meets me at the curb of the apartment building to walk me inside.

“How was your day?” he drawls once we’re in the elevator, and I burst into tears.

“Fucking awful,” I cry, dashing the tears from my face angrily. “I haven’t done anything but exist, and Ivan the asshole tried to grab me, Ciara, throat punched him by the way. She probably deserves a raise due to how many times she’s had to pull back. But because of the way he tried to backhand me, her instincts kicked in.”

“I’ll be sure to throw in a bigger Christmas bonus,” he says dryly, pulling me into his arms. “He’s so lucky he didn’t touch you. God, those kids are fucking entitled assholes.”

Jack reminds me of all of the reasons why I’m at school for the next few minutes, his lips against the shell of my ear as he speaks, and it helps settle me.

“Still want to go out tonight?” he asks as we walk out of the elevator to our apartment.

“Yes, I definitely do. I need to do something that has nothing to do with work or school,” I sigh.

“Your wish is my command,” he says. I love the way he listens to me, goes with the flow, and I never feel guilty if I just don’t have the mental or physical spoons for something.

An hour later, we’ve changed, eaten a snack, and are on our way to the block party. I think the level of security around this neighborhood may be able to rival Ft. Knox, but I appreciate it because it reminds me that I’m safe.

No one is going to take me off of the street, I don’t need a bodyguard, and I can just be me. Jack told Ciara he had tonight covered.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many lights,” I whisper, my eyes wide as I look around.

“We’re going to drive around first before we go to Isaac’s house,” Jack says, amused as Bee and I squeal about different houses.

The sad truth is that I haven’t been able to stroll around to look at Christmas lights in a long time. Sometimes, when I felt really lonely, I’d take a bus downtown, to watch all the happy people bustling around and look at the lights, but this is different.

Belmont also wasn’t really somewhere that celebrated the Christmas season, outside of lamenting about how much it sucked.

“It’s really pretty,” Bee says. “This one is decked out all in the Peanuts cartoon characters.”

Rolling down my window, I realize that some of the houses have different Christmas songs coming from the yards, yet somehow they don’t overlap, because of the size of each property.

While it’s over the top and ostentatious, the bottom line is that it only happens once a year. Why not celebrate big?

Finally, Jack pulls up to his friend’s house, and there are people walking the streets, laughing, and some are dancing. Getting out of the truck, I grin at how happy people are, despite the cold weather.

“Oh wow, is it snowing?” I ask with a grin, tipping up my face to catch a snowflake on my tongue.

“It looks like it just started,” Jack says, thoroughly amused. “I’m invited every year, and I rarely make it out. I’ll have to make sure we accept it more often.”

“Jack!” a large man calls from a yard, striding toward us. There are people drinking beer on his porch, and I can smell barbecue of all things as well.

“Hey, Isaac,” Jack says with a grin, giving him a hug and a pounding pat on the back. “Thanks for the invite. We drove around for a bit just to take in all the lights.”

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